


Unexpected Flowers (blooming out of season)

by DarklingMoon



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders' Electricity Trick (Dragon Age), Bathing/Washing, Caretaking, Dragon Age II - Act 2, F/M, Hair Braiding, Hair Washing, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarklingMoon/pseuds/DarklingMoon
Summary: After a moment, Anders sits back with a sigh. “Youaregoing to be fine.”His words no longer sound far away and garbled. The stars look clean and sharp, standing out as bright points of light. Hawke feels like she just woke up, and everything is clear again. Her body hurts, but she can move it. Anders is holding one of her hands, his fingers on her wrist for a pulse.Hawke falls during battle, and wakes up on a bed of flowers.
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke, Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGreenOkapi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreenOkapi/gifts).



> Happy birthday TheGreenOkapi! ^^  
> Here's to twenty years of friendship, and hopefully at least twenty more!
> 
> This work is complete, so I'll plan on posting a chapter every day or couple of days until it's all posted.

Bugs are singing, making the night seem more peaceful than it really is. It’s a soothing sound, mixing with the muggy summer night. Kirkwall gets so much hotter than Ferelden did. Sweat is building under Sofira Hawke’s armor—leather protects, but it doesn’t breathe.   
She hopes that she doesn’t need that protection, but the Wounded Coast is a dangerous place. She’s well equipped to handle danger, with the long and wickedly sharp daggers on each hip, so it’s more for the sake of those she’s guarding that she prays for safety.   
Nine children, ranging in age from fourteen down to just three, are in a worried knot ahead of her.  
From the front of the group comes another sound contrary to the ever-present imminent disaster of her life, and the tension of the night. A soft lullaby; it’s no less comforting for being sung in Anders’ slightly raspy voice.  
It’s vaguely familiar, turning over the soil burying memories of not Leandra but Malcolm. Maybe there are lullabies sung in the Circle, older mages and apprentices comforting scared and homesick mage children. Hawke wonders what they’re about; she can’t catch the words. What would comfort a young mage, ripped away from their family still young enough to be caught crying over it by strangers?   
If Anders is singing it now, it might be about freedom. Maybe mages sing about nights like this, the terror of escape and the hope of the open sky.   
The boy he’s singing to, the one in his arms, is a mage. All these children are. He’s too small to make the trek himself, small enough to be carried, and the Templars already want to take him away from his family.   
But his parents had sought out the Darktown healer instead, the one that’s a mage in whispers and helps other mages in the space between words, and now the boy and all the other children are being smuggled out of Kirkwall under cover of night, to a ship bound for Rivain. Mages are safer there. They’ll have freedom, and futures.   
The sound of Anders singing is something that shines brightly in Hawke’s mind. It’s just a soft sound, but it means a lot. Malcolm had been a good father, once upon a time. Her memories of him are sweet, as tinged with grief as they still are.   
She’s seen Anders be hard and rough and violent. This place demands that. She’s heard his voice scream threats on the battlefield, but now it’s so soft. She’s seen that staff call down fire from the sky, but now it’s just giving off a steady lantern glow, lighting the way. He’s a rebel, but he’s also a healer. Maybe what he’s doing now is just as radical as his violence has ever been. It certainly seems to scare the Templars more, no matter what they say about blood mages and malificarum.   
Hawke looks back when Duthka barks. The mabari behind her pauses for a moment, sniffing the air, and then bounds forward excitedly.   
Sure enough, they crest a ridge, and Anders lifts his staff. “There’s the ship! We’re almost there,” he calls out.   
The children don’t say anything, but Hawke sees the relief go through them.   
“Not far now,” she echoes. “And nothing went wrong, though I probably shouldn’t say that out loud.”  
Anders is close enough to hear her, and he gives a short laugh before he sobers with a sigh. “Wait until the ship sails away.”  
With our luck it’ll sink, Hawke thinks, but has the presence of mind not to say in front of scared children.   
The dim lanterns on the ship come into view over the ridge. Now they just have to pick their way down to the beach.   
Halfway down, a little girl falls, crying out in pain. The sound makes Hawke go on alert, scanning the area, but it seems that she just tripped. Duthka bounds up to her side, wagging his tail reassuringly, lending his thick neck for her to help herself up. He licks her face, and she laughs. Crisis averted.   
Hawke is on alert as they splash out into the shallows of the sea—it’s gentle here, in a small cove, and though some of the children are up to their shoulders there’s little danger of them being swept away, but that’s not the only thing to look out for. She would be jumpy if jumpy was a thing she would call herself, but as it is, she’s wary.   
A second pair of hands, Anders had said. To manage nine children. But his tone had belied that in Kirkwall, especially at night—the second pair of hands ought to both be holding weapons. Hers are.   
The last of the children is loaded onto the ship, and Anders drops off the ladder with a splash. Even in the dark, Hawke can see his smile. It’s tired, but as happy and relieved as she’s ever seen it.  
He wades over to her, the water dragging at the hem of his coat. “That’s the last of them. Our job is done.” He claps her on the shoulder, and the leather there is thick enough that she barely feels it, can’t tell how long his hand is there, if it lingers. Still, she appreciates the gesture.   
“We still have to get home,” Hawke reminds him. “I don’t want to rain on your parade, but it’s a miracle that we got out safe.”  
The sailors start calling orders back and forth, and the ship starts to move away. “I’m not worried about us,” Anders says. “You’re more than a match for any bandit.”  
“There’s usually more than one,” Hawke points out, but she grins, letting the praise go to her head. She’s still getting used to being someone with a reputation—she’s always been expected to protect people, but she’s starting to grow into the skills to actually do it. “You can shoot lightning at the second one,” she banters back.   
“Cooking bandits hardly improves their odor,” he jokes, and Hawke laughs in surprise as they start to move back to the beach. Duthka likes the water, splashing through the shallows, chasing a fish.   
“You really are in high spirits. I thought Justice hated jokes.”  
“Not ones about bandits. Anyone who preys on the weak is fair game.”  
The conversation flows light and easy as they make it out of the water and back to dry land, then back up the ridge.   
It’s there that their luck runs out.


	2. Chapter 2

“Oh, _shit,”_ Hawke swears, weary at having been proven right, as an arrow flies past her shoulder right as she crests the ridge. “Who wants to die?” She unsheathes her two daggers in a single fluid motion, searching for her first target. Duthka growls. 

Anders raises his staff, casting the light farther ahead. They’ve already been seen; there’s no advantage in not making it bright enough to see their foes.

Their armor is Tevinter, and well-made. The group in front of them isn’t dirty or malnourished like bandits—slavers eat well, in Kirkwall.

“No need for fighting,” the leader calls out, though he has his hand on his sword. From the way he carries himself, he’s confident that he knows how to use it. “We got a report that you were smuggling mages. Give them over to our care, and you can go on your way.”

Hawke turns to Anders. “They’re slavers. All slavers need to die.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Anders says, twirling his staff.

“Bring them out from wherever you’re hiding them. Is it a spell? We’ll even pay you. A little below fair market value, but this is hardly a market.”

S uddenly, there’s a flare of blue light and a kind of strange, cold heat from Anders, and Hawke takes a step back. Justice slams his staff down. “You are speaking of  _children,”_ he booms. 

“Now is as good a time as any to attack, I suppose!” Hawke quips before launching herself into the fray alongside her faithful mabari. 

It’s not how she prefers to fight, the center of attention, but where her armor is built for dexterity and dodging rather than direct hits, Anders’ clothes could hardly be called armor at all. So she does her best to draw all the eyes to her, even as a bolt of lightning arcs between enemies, leaving them twitching on the ground. 

Hawke is turning, whirling almost like a dancer, finding each opening—her daggers strike true, leaving deep wounds.

Duthka bowls into a group, and when they go down under his solid body and snapping jaws, they don’t get up. 

She turns away just as a gout of flame turns the sandy soil to glass and a couple of slavers to ash. Like it was coordinated. For a moment, it’s exhilarating.  It’s synergy, moving in sync with another person. 

T hen...it’s just a small stumble, but it’s enough of an opening, and the leader’s sword flashes through her guard and then her armor. 

Then she’s staring down at half a sword sticking out of her chest, wondering where the rest of it is. 

The lead slaver pulls his sword back, bringing with it a gush of blood. Oh—that’s where it was. Through her ribs. Inside her body. Now there’s a hole. 

Still, she just feels numb as she falls backwards. Everything was moving so fast before, but she was able to keep up. Now the world is moving slow but she can’t seem to move at all. 

She’s staring up at the dark sky when there’s another flash of blue light. Except that it’s not just a flash, it’s a whole blaze, and Anders is screaming,  “ No! Don’t be dead! Please!”  The last note mixes with a howl, Duthka giving his own plea. 

T he blue grows brighter, blue enough to make the night sky look like day, and Justice yells, “You will not have her!”

The boom of magic takes all the air from the area and  _slams_ it down into the ground, and Hawke hears the bodies hit the dirt.

They don’t get up, but neither does she. She can’t seem to move at all. 

“Please!” Anders says, back to his own voice. It’s raw, emotion taking it back to a primal state, and she wonders, for her? How can that be for her?

T hose thoughts, that question, goes somewhere hidden, it settles somewhere under her heart, where she can pull it out and look at it later. 

Anders is here now. She knows there will be a later. 

The next thing she sees is Anders’ worried face, hovering over her own. Hands over her chest. “No,” grief and then determination, “You’re going to be  _fine.”_

The first healing spell hits her like a mabari’s charge, and it _hurts._ More than the sword ever did. She gasps at the breath being forced back into her broken lungs.

The hollow where her flesh should be burns inferno-bright. She arches up off the ground, back bowing, and she finds that she can get her arms underneath herself.

Still, she collapses back to the ground. When she does, she feels oddly cushioned. There’s no time to wonder about that—the pain is too intense.

She can feel Anders’ hands, burning over her skin. She has skin, now, where before was a gaping hole.

After a moment, Anders sits back with a sigh. “You _are_ going to be fine.”

His words no longer sound far away and garbled. The stars look clean and sharp, standing out as bright points of light. Hawke feels like she just woke up, and everything is clear again. Her body hurts, but she can move it. Anders is holding one of her hands, his fingers on her wrist for a pulse.

She can move it well enough to laugh and raise her arms, taking her hand away from Anders’ grasp, to defend her face as Duthka licks it, but doing that brings a fresh wave of pain.

“Careful!” Anders says, pushing the dog back. “I wasn’t able to heal you completely. I may be a miracle worker, but I couldn’t take you from death’s door to fine.” He bends down, carefully helping her sit up. “Still, you should be able to walk away.”

When Hawke looks around, she sees a circle of green, spreading ten feet in every direction, centered on her. The sandy ground had some sparse vegetation, but within the circle, it’s riotously verdant. There’s a bush bursting with flowers blooming by her head, and her legs are buried in long grass that’s heavy with seeds. “What...happened?”

Anders rubs the back of his neck, looking around. “I usually have better control than that. But if you pour enough magic into a vessel—like a human body—some overflows, and then it does what it will.”

Hawke silently reaches out to touch a flower. The first time she raises her arm out of her lap, she drops it back with a wince. The second time, she moves more carefully, and she finds that she can graze her fingertips across a flower without too much pain.

“We should get you home. Do you think you’re ready to stand?” Anders asks. His voice is businesslike but gentle. He sounds like a healer.

Hawke nods. “Yes.” Stubborn. Mother always said she was stubborn.

Anders helps her to her feet, and there’s something electric about his hands. They’re warm, calloused from his staff. Maybe the strange feeling is because he’s a mage. Maybe it’s Justice. She never got that same tang of ozone from Bethany, holding her pudgy child fingers in her hand so she didn’t get lost. She misses her sister.

Between Anders helping her and Duthka standing by for her to brace herself on, she manages to stay vertical.

Then it’s just the walk back to Kirkwall.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s a long, slow walk—so much longer than the way out here was, somehow—but they make it back to Kirkwall, and Hawke’s Hightown mansion.

It’s quiet, as the front door creaks open. Anders lets go of her as she sits down to rest for a moment in the entryway, and she wishes she was still holding onto some part of him. That’s a new thought, and she explores it. Just because she’s in pain?

“Okay,” she sighs, getting ready to stand up again. Anders stands patiently nearby, and she’s glad it’s him here. Any of her friends would take care of her, but she wouldn’t be as comfortable being humbled like this in front of all of them. “Better get up the stairs so you can pour me into bed. I’m sure I’ll feel all better by tomorrow morning.”

“Ready?” Anders says, carefully gripping her shoulder. His hands are so gentle.

When she nods, they work together to get her back on her feet.

The house they walk through is quiet. Bodahn and Leandra must have already gone to bed, not waiting up for her. That’s a relief, for right now—she doesn’t have to face her mother’s worrying.

Some nobles would demand that their servants not go to bed before they do, but Hawke is so new to nobility. She has a hard time thinking of Bodahn as a servant at all.

When they make it up to her bedroom—the stairs are a challenge, but she makes it, taking it slow—there’s a new problem. Hawke lifts her arms to start undoing the buckles and clasps on her armor and winces. “Maybe I’ll just...sleep in this,” she says, tone light. She’s done it before, on longer missions outside of Kirkwall, where there’s no safe place to sleep.

Anders scoffs. “That wouldn’t be very comfortable. Here, let me.” He steps forward, hands going to the buckle she was reaching for, deft fingers undoing it easily.

Bit by bit, her armor loosens. It occurs to her that she might have saved some time by just cutting the chest piece off; it’s ruined. Still, Anders treats it gently. Treats her gently.

He steps around in front of her to find the next buckle, and her eyes are drawn to the small bit of bare skin above his feathery pauldrons. The triangle of his undershirt that shows there looks worn, but like it would be soft, like it was well-made at some point in time. He smells warm.

Anders finally lifts off the leather breastplate, carefully maneuvering it around her arms. Hawke has a fleeting thought of him taking off her armor in a different context, and it’s an interesting thought, no matter how tired and aching she is. As it is, he doesn’t hint towards anything like that at all. She’s still wearing clothes under her armor—more layers are better, when it comes to defense—but she could imagine another man taking advantage of this, even if just to make some comment, to put his hands somewhere they don’t strictly need to be.

Finally, Hawke’s armor is in a neat pile on the floor. But at this point, she’s stood quietly for long enough to become aware of another problem. She touches the tacky drying blood that’s soaked her shirt, making it stick to her. Her fingers still come away wet. It makes her slightly dizzy to think that most of it is hers. “I need a bath,” she sighs. Her bed now is covered in nicer sheets and blankets than anything she’s ever slept on in her life before this, and while she probably has the coin to replace them, the thought of ruining such expensive things makes her cringe.

She could wake Bodahn and have him draw her a bath. He would probably at least pretend to be as cheerful about it as he is about everything else. But he already wakes at dawn—she feels guilty about thinking of disturbing him. It’s well past midnight.

“Oh, _no,”_ she snaps suddenly, catching sight of Duthka moving towards the bed. He shrinks back, looking contrite. “You’re almost as dirty as me, you are _not_ getting on that bed until you’ve had a bath.” Maybe she should just stay up and read until Bodahn gets up and can help her wash him. The thought of another task, currently so monumental, makes her even more tired.

As if he’s read her thoughts, Anders suddenly speaks up, after standing awkwardly by. “Want me to stay? I’ve given a mabari a bath before.”

“Really? When? I thought you were more of a cat person.”

“The Hero of Ferelden had one. They really are drawn to—well. You remind me of her. More than a little.”

“How so?” Hawke grins, tilting her head. “I can’t help but want to hear how you could compare me to someone so...legendary.”

Anders shrugs. “People who get things done, I suppose. People with bright spirits.”

Duthka whines, and Hawke sighs. “You can’t possibly be as tired as me. But I get it. You want to go to bed.”

“Well, to the bathroom?” Anders asks, and Hawke nods.

The room could hardly be called large, especially having two people and such a big dog in it, but it’s still luxuriously huge to Hawke, used to a closet with a bucket in it. The large wooden tubs for bathing even fit in here.

Anders can even heat the water with magic. He holds his hands under the surface, bubbles erupting from them. Hawke watches him, raising an eyebrow. He turns back to her. “What? I would think you’d be used to that trick. Your sister is a mage, and your father was, too.”

“It is familiar,” she says. She leans against the edge of the tub, sticking her hand idly in the warming water, watching tendrils of pink bleed off of it. “I’m just wondering how you have any power left. You must have used a lot, healing me, and those gravity spells weren’t anything to sneeze at either.”

“Ah,” Anders says, shifting his weight. “I also took a lot of lyrium. Perhaps more than I should have, really.”

Hawke is quiet. It’s another piece of the puzzle, and it fits alongside what she had stored away earlier, the way his voice had sounded as she fell. The picture she finds herself building makes her feel warm. Up until recently, she’s been able to count the people she cared about on one hand. She had come to realize that that number is growing, but now—the number of people who care about _her_ is growing as well, she understands.

Anders breaks eye contact first, looking away. “The water is hot,” he remarks.

Duthka barks, and Anders laughs. “Yes, I did yours too. I shouldn’t have. You’re supposed to be a big, fierce war dog, not some pampered pet. Cold water builds character, I’m sure.”

Duthka jumps into the tub happily, and Anders kneels down, grabbing a brush and starting to scrub the blood and dirt off the dog.

Hawke barely hesitates before starting to undress. Anders has been such a gentleman so far, and besides, he’s a healer—he’s seen bodies before.

She sinks into the hot water with a sigh. During the walk, the last dregs of the magic had done their work, making her feel hardly dead at all. But there’s still a fierce ache in her chest, running along the bones into her arms. The water eases it, somewhat.


	4. Chapter 4

Hawke takes a moment just to settle into the water, breathing in the steam. Along with her injury, exhaustion has long been pulling at her bones.

Anders doesn’t seem to feel the same weariness, from his vigorous scrubbing of the dog. “How are you not _tired?”_ Hawke wonders, yawning. “You were all over the Wounded Coast just like I was, carrying that child, no less. And then I know it takes effort to swing that staff. And no matter how much lyrium you took, using that much magic still takes a toll.”

Anders looks back at her. “Another Grey Warden perk,” he says with a shrug, as if he isn’t super-human. “We have more stamina. We can work, walk, or fight for days without sleep.”

“That doesn’t seem healthy.” Hawke picks up a rag and wets it, starting to slowly wash away the blood and grime covering her chest.

“It’s probably not. And the Warden-Commander just used it as an excuse to be a slave-driver,” he says with a small laugh. “I suppose it doesn’t matter much. I’ll be dying young anyway.”

Hawke pauses. His words are surprisingly light. “Why do you say that?”

Anders blinks, looking slightly conflicted for a moment, then looks down. He turns back to Duthka, picking up the brush again. “Oh, you know. It’s a dangerous life we lead. Can you really imagine me retiring?”

“Yes, I can,” Hawke says firmly. “You could find a cottage in a nice little village and heal children’s scraped knees and deliver a couple of babies a year. Feed all the cats that eat the mice in the fields until they’re fat and lazy and they sleep in front of your hearth at night.”

When Anders moves, she catches a faint smile on his face, though he doesn’t look at her. “You know me surprisingly well,” he muses. “Still, folks in those villages tend to be even more mage-fearing than most. They’d report me to the Templars on my first day.”

“They wouldn’t,” Hawke says. “They wouldn’t because there will be no more Templars for them to report you to. Not by the time you retire. We’re going to change the world.”

Anders slowly puts down the brush and turns around. There’s something on his face, in his eyes, but it’s unreadable. A candle behind a shutter. “I take it back,” he says. “You know me _frighteningly_ well.”

He does give her a smile, and it’s small but it contains so much light. It’s vulnerable, somehow. Soft.

Then he turns back to the mabari. “If we’re going to be changing the world together, I think you’ll have earned that cottage too.”

“It sounds nice,” is all she says, but it hides a whirl of emotions. A surge of unexpected hope comes first. Then the flare dies down. She can see what he means—she can’t imagine herself there. Can’t imagine a world where the only blades she holds are for chopping vegetables. Still… “It sounds nice,” she says again, stubbornly.

There’s also the weight of what he’s offering. It should be nothing next to what she just said she would do with him, but it is.

“It does,” Anders agrees, and then they’re both quiet.

Hawke goes back to washing. Moving carefully, she gets her body clean, although the water is murky and red-tinged now. She touches the edges of her newest scar, a ragged shape between her breasts. The skin is pink and shiny and uneven where it had knitted back together too fast, in the course of minutes instead of weeks.

Anders finishes dumping water over Duthka to rinse off the soap and throws a towel over him, drying him off before he can shake and get the whole room wet. Hawke raises her arms to her hair and winces, but works her hands through the strands anyway. There’s dried blood here too, matting the locks together, as well as sticks and twigs and dirt. And plants—she had been laying on the ground as the magic coursed through them, making them surge with life, and some grew through her hair. She finds something bigger, and pulls it out of her hair.

It’s a flower. A blue flower, with perfectly formed petals, despite growing in an instant.

Hawke places it on the edge of the tub and goes back to trying to wash her hair.

When she reaches further up, she accidentally lets out a small noise of pain.

Anders hears, of course, and drops the towel and turns to her right away. “What’s wrong?”

Hawke sighs, feeling like she’s been caught. “It hurts to raise my arms.”

“So don’t do that,” he returns immediately. “You’re pulling on that injury. It isn’t fully healed inside yet. Your ribs were broken, your lung punctured. It’s just lucky he missed your heart.”

“My hair is filthy, though.”

“I’ll wash it,” Anders says.

Hawke passes him the soap.

He lathers up his hands, working the soap between them. “Tilt your head back,” he says, and she does. He starts at her scalp, fingers digging in gently, and she sighs. It feels good, his hands diligent and capable.

Before, taking off her armor had been—not even friendly. More like a healer caring for a patient. Kind, but impersonal. This feels like a lot more than that.

Maybe even past friendly.

It’s not all an unwelcome thought. How could it be, with the way his fingers work apart the knots in her hair so gently? He combs out all the debris.

“Here,” he says, his touch on her head suggesting that she sink further into the tub, dunking her hair underwater. Anders combs through the locks again, rinsing out all the soap.

“There you go,” he says. “All clean.”

Hawke takes one more moment to relax, but by now the water is cooling. So she stands up, taking a towel to wrap around herself as she steps out of the tub.

“Turn around,” Anders says, and she does, putting her back to him. His hands go back to her hair, this time radiating dry heat. Unexpectedly, tears prick at the corners of her eyes as he combs through her hair again, drying it.

“My father used to do that, too,” she remarks, not entirely managing to keep the grief out of her voice. “Bethany still dries her hair that way.”

“You miss both of them,” Anders says, and she nods.

Neither of them say anything else. There’s nothing else to say.

When her hair is dry, Anders doesn’t stop, parting it into sections with his fingers and starting to wind them together. The gentle tug of his braiding is just as soothing, and Hawke yawns.

“That feels so much better,” she sighs as they head back to her bedroom. Duthka is already asleep on the bed. “Still hurts, but I feel human again.”

Anders frowns. “Where does it hurt?”

Hawke blinks. “Um, my chest? Where I got run through with a sword?”

Anders holds up his hand, reaching for her. “May I?”

Hawke isn’t sure what he wants to do, exactly, but she assumes it involves more magic. So she moves the towel to the side, exposing the newly healed wound.

Anders moves his hand to it, but doesn’t quite touch. Instead, Hawke jumps slightly as a small spark jumps from his fingertips to her. “Does that feel better?” He holds his hand over her, crackling electricity jumping to her.

“It feels...odd,” Hawke says, after a moment. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.” The tingling, buzzing sensation takes over for the pain.

“Anywhere else?” When Anders takes away his hand, the strange sensation stops, but the pain doesn’t immediately return. It’s a blessed relief. “You have a lot of scars. I’d imagine that some of them still hurt.”

Hawke sighs. “They do.”

“Point out the worst ones.”

That’s easy, the constant aches impossible to ever fully ignore. Anders spends time on each one, until Hawke is more free from pain than she can ever remember being. Perhaps when she was a child her body felt this light and easy.

“Thank you,” she says, quietly, and there’s a depth of meaning behind it.

“Just glad to help,” Anders says, as if he’d do it anytime. “Do you have clothes you sleep in?”

Hawke points him to the top shelf of the wardrobe, and thankfully her shirt pulls over her arms, so she’s able to put it on herself. The soft red fabric settles over her shoulders, everything feeling so clean now.

Anders is over at the window as she pulls the blankets back on her side of the bed. “The sun is rising,” he remarks.

Hawke settles into bed, feeling exhaustion drag her down into the softness. It feels almost good now. A day well spent. “It’s probably beautiful, on that ship. The sun coming up over the water.”

“Those children have futures now,” he says, still watching the sunrise. Then he turns, and he’s watching her. She closes her eyes, his gaze feeling nothing but comforting.

“Good morning, Sofira,” Anders, says, but she doesn’t hear as he leaves, closing the door after him.

The flower she plucked out of her hair sits on her bedside table.


End file.
